Trouble With Sides Of Torted Cake Matching Up...please Help

No matter what I do I always have to shave the side of my cakes so that the layers match up...What am I doing wrong? By the way I use straight sided pans, I just cant line them up properly. Is there a trick to this?Please help. Thanks,Polly

I've never had the pleasure of using an agbay. However until you get one, it's not the end of the world to have to trim the sides of your cakes. I actually shave the sides of all my cakes now. Makes icing them so much easier.

Some pastry chefs want all the brown removed from thier cakes.

I mean I just never have baked off perfectly perfect cakes so the trimming makes the icing slide on easy so I don't have any of those annoying spots that can shine through your icing when you're smoothing kwim. So you gotta go back and add more in that area and re-smooth.